


Time is the fire in which we burn

by danielosbourne



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anal Sex, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Coming Out, Dancing, Internalized Homophobia, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Nomad Steve Rogers, Porn with Feelings, Post-Black Panther (2018), Sharing a Bed, Skinny Dipping, Wakanda (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:06:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28376673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danielosbourne/pseuds/danielosbourne
Summary: Bucky’s brought him to some sort of…club? He’d called it a dancehall, which is the kind of phrasing Steve knows Bucky only still uses around him, like he needs to be introduced to the future gently and hasn’t been fighting literal aliens and robots since he arrived.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 17
Kudos: 144





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suppose this can be read as canon-compliant if that's your thing, but I pledge no loyalty there.
> 
> Title from [Calmly We Walk through the April Day](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42633/calmly-we-walk-through-this-aprils-day) by Delmore Scwartz

“Just like old times, huh pal?”

It’s a joke. Bucky’s doing that again: cracking jokes. Which _is_ like old times, even if their current surroundings aren’t. The amber liquid in his glass doesn’t have much effect, but seeing Bucky so relaxed has Steve feeling the closest he has to drunk since 1943.

Bucky’s brought him to some sort of…club? He’d called it a dancehall, which is the kind of phrasing Steve knows Bucky only still uses around him, like he needs to be introduced to the future gently and hasn’t been fighting literal aliens and robots since he arrived. There is dancing, though. The kind of dancing that despite his enhanced agility and spatial awareness makes Steve very conscious he is a 100-year-old white guy who could _never_. But every line in Bucky’s face has gone slack and his eyes are bright with something Steve hopes is joy. It makes him look decades younger.

Steve initially thought Bucky’s time in Wakanda was punitive. A self-imposed exile, in lieu of a government one. But Bucky had introduced Steve to his goats with the same amount of detail and enthusiasm he’d once reserved for the Dodgers’ roster. He could work a grain scythe one handed as proficiently as a sniper rifle. And now he’d brought Steve to a nightclub in the city where he knows the bouncer by name, and navigates the crowd with practiced ease. This is Bucky’s life now. Pastoral and mysteriously therapeutic, congregating with the masses to let loose after a week’s worth of hard labor.

“You wanna dance?” asks Bucky, setting his empty glass on the table.

Steve laughs, “Nope.”

It’s nothing like old times. The lights are lower, the music louder. The way girls used to fall over themselves to get Bucky’s name on their dance card, you’d have thought he was the star at a Hollywood premiere and not some neighborhood kid in a cheaply decorated rec hall. Here, he’s left alone.

Steve knows it’s deliberate. With his one arm and fair skin and international fugitive status, Bucky doesn’t quite enjoy anonymity in Wakanda, but it would seem he’s been granted a fair amount of privacy.

Steve watches Bucky come to a stop at the bar, barely visible in the moving shadows. The last vestiges of the Winter Soldier bleed out of his posture as he slants black to rest his elbow on the counter. Steve tenses instinctively when a towering figure begins approaching, but then Bucky must notice too because Steve can just make out the curl of a smile on his lips.

Surely someone Bucky knows, the way he allows—invites—the man into his space. The way he tilts his head back when the man stoops down to speak into his ear. The way his hand reaches out to toy with the man’s shirt front, then grabs on as he’s pulled to the dancefloor.

The way Steve’s stomach drops right into the floor is dreadfully familiar. At some point in his previous life he’d learned to recognize his jealousy for what it is. When they were kids, Steve had only wanted to _be_ Bucky. A little bigger, a little smarter, a little better at just about everything. Steve wanted a houseful of noisy siblings and to get good marks in math class. He wanted to know what it was like to be picked first for stick ball and have one of the popular girls slip him a note in the schoolyard.

Steve didn’t have much reason for believing in miracles back then and being Bucky Barnes’ best friend had been a fine consolation prize. But, as so often is the case, his teenage years wrought all sorts of havoc on his perception of himself.

The fooling around hadn’t struck Steve as anything out of the ordinary. Wasn’t saintly behavior maybe, but he’d spent too much time in hospital wards and been in too many back-alley scrapes at that point to consider his body truly sacred. They mostly kept their hands to themselves anyway, except the few times Bucky managed to lift some booze from his Pa and the liquor made them bold. Steve figured it wasn't an uncommon favor between close friends. He never could have anticipated the despair of watching Bucky decide to kiss Arlene Ellis in front of everybody at a junior dance competition they’d just won—and being jealous of _Arlene_.

He hadn’t anticipated feeling any such way tonight. Frankly, they’ve faced more pressing issues in recent years than reexamining their youthful indiscretions, but it suddenly feels like a unforgivable oversight. It’s been 80 years since Steve’s had even the flimsiest excuse to feel possessive over who Bucky gets friendly with. What right does he have to put that on Bucky now that he’s finally found some measure of peace?

Bucky’s down there dancing with a _man_ is the thing. An Asguardian-god sized man with wandering hands and perfect rhythm. The whole pretense of never, ever discussing his feelings with Bucky was that _Bucky liked girls_. To be fair, so had Steve. But the difference back then was that girls liked Bucky back. Didn’t seem to matter much what went on between them nights his Ma was at work when Bucky would have a new dame to show off by the weekend.

Steve’s too busy cataloguing a half-century worth of unasked questions to notice the music change. Bucky’s back in his seat, flushed and blessedly ignorant of the maelstrom he’s just ignited in Steve’s head.

“Do you want to dance?” blurts Steve, apparently willing to give into his most desperate impulses to keep Bucky’s attention now.

Bucky stares at him blankly, “You said you didn’t want to. Like, three minutes ago.”

Steve shrugs, “I was waiting for a slow song.”

Bucky looks rightly skeptical.

“Please?” Steve can’t explain why he’s pushing this. He can’t dance. Even with the serum and several decades under his belt, that hasn’t changed.

“Fine. Let’s see what you got, Rogers.”

Steve scouts out the darkest corner of the dancefloor, pulling his friend behind him. Leaving room for the Holy Ghost seems to have fallen out of fashion while he was on ice, so Steve crowds into Bucky’s space like he’d seen that other guy do. It immediately feels too aggressive, but Bucky’s biting his lips closed like he’s trying not to laugh.

“ _Don’t_ laugh,” warns Steve, which of course sets Bucky off.

“Or what? You gonna step on my toes?”

“I’m gonna do that anyway, jerk,” mumbles Steve.

Bucky only lets Steve flounder a moment more before bringing his hand to the back of Steve’s neck. They’re pressed so close Steve isn’t sure how they’ll be able to move, but he feels Bucky pulling gently to the right and tries to relax enough to be swayed along.

“Sorry,” Steve whispers without a clear idea of who or what he’s apologizing for. Too many things have gone wrong for this to feel as right as it does.

“Let’s just dance, Steve.”

He’s not sure whatever they’re doing is really dancing—even under modern definitions—but it’s nice to have a reason to hold on to Bucky, who’s a little sweaty and smelling exactly like he did 80 years ago. It’s nice to feel safe, not just embracing a man in public, but existing as themselves in the respite Wakanda so steadfastly provides. Steve should let the rest go. Enjoy a nice evening out, and avoid complicating a friendship that has already faced an epic share of challenges.

* * *

Steve keeps his resolve until they make it back out to the farm in the darkest hours of the night. Bucky had offered to drop Steve off at the palace where a perfectly adequate guest suite awaits, and Steve had pretended not to be horrified as he declined. In fairness, the hut where Bucky stays is hardly big enough for one super soldier let alone two, but they’ve made camp in worse conditions.

“The quiet never gets to you?” asks Steve, listening to the crickets chirp. Tony had once gifted him a ridiculous noise machine after Steve inquired about the excessive soundproofing at Stark Tower. Hours of looped city sounds, played back from a tinny lo-fi speaker while Midtown Manhattan bustled on in silence.

“I kinda like it,” says Bucky, shucking his shirt. He’s leaned out a bit since Steve found him in Romania. Without the cybernetic arm, he’s less imposing than the Winter Soldier, but no less impressive. “Gonna go rinse off,” he adds, disappearing toward the lake.

The night is moonless, offering little in the way of ambient light so Steve relies on the soft sounds of motion in the water to follow his friend.

“Are there crocs in here?”

“Definitely,” says Bucky from where he’s crouched down at the bank.

Steve supposes between the two of them, they could probably take a crocodile, though it’s not exactly how he was hoping to cap off the night.

“Do you get to go out like that often?” asks Steve, removing his shoes.

“Been trying to. As a part of my—my therapy? Rehab? Whatever you want to call it.”

Steve’s been told frustratingly little of Bucky’s progress. Shuri had only casually mentioned he was out of cryo six months ago when Sam needed a bone set after an emergency evac from Dakar. Communication has been sparse since, visits more so, and Bucky hasn’t revealed much about the process. Steve takes some comfort in knowing the techniques have been personalized, and are at least occasionally pleasurable.

“You looked good out there. Dancing’s changed since our day. I don’t know how you manage to keep up.”

“It’s the music that changes. Dancing’s just dancing.”

“I guess,” shrugs Steve, doubtful that’s true for anyone but Bucky, “Thanks for not letting me make a fool out of myself, anyway.”

“Aw, Stevie, even I ain’t that good,” says Bucky with a shit-eating grin Steve can hear if not see.

No one’s called him Stevie since he was 90 pounds wet. Used to piss him off, the way any perceived slight did back then, but right now he wants to lick the name straight out of Bucky’s mouth.

He splashes his face with a handful of tepid water instead, and gets to removing the rest of his clothes.

“You know you can tell me things, Buck,” he says after a while.

Bucky’s silent, wading out into the deeper water, further from Steve.

“I’m not trying to hide anything from you,” Bucky says finally.

Steve knows that’s probably true. Neither of them have ever been willing to risk their friendship by asking the hard questions, and Steve’s offered up little vulnerability of his own.

“You know, I—” Steve starts, grateful for the shield of darkness, “I got a little jealous watching you dance with that other guy tonight. Not for the first time, but I guess it’s been a while. I’d forgotten how good you are. I’d forgotten what it was like to watch you and to—to want.”

Steve can’t hear the crickets anymore over his own heartbeat.

“I’m out of reasons to hide it, Buck. Nothing’s like it was eighty years ago—”

“Eighty years ago?” Bucky interrupts.

“Oh, at least,” admits Steve.

They both go quiet after that. Steve’s heart is pounding and his head is buzzing, but he won’t let himself regret baring this bit of his soul just yet, even as he’s beginning to regret standing naked in crocodile infested waters to do it.

He completes his cursory wipe down, hyperaware of where Bucky remains in the water, eerily still.

“Steve?”

“Yeah?” He tries and fails to tamp down the hope in his voice.

“I’m still pretty messed up, you know?”

“Bucky…”

“I don’t know how much is left of that guy from eighty-years-ago.”

“Christ, Buck, that’s not—not what I’m after.”

“What are you after?”

Steve’s not immune to nostalgia. His memories of Bucky remain the highlight of a childhood marred by poverty, chronic illness and tragedy. Tonight he’d been reminded of the past, but it was only because it’d been that long since he’d seen Bucky so unburdened.

“It gets lonely. The fight. The future. I know I’m lucky to be here, and I’ve met some real good people along the way, but I still feel alone in it sometimes, and—I don’t know—I don’t feel it as much around you. Doesn’t have to be more than it is. You deserve to be happy too, Buck. Whatever that looks like.”

“Not sure I do, Steve,” murmurs Bucky.

“You _do_ ,” commands Steve, because if there’s one thing he’s sure of in this—or any—universe it’s that Bucky Barnes deserves a lot better than he fucking got.

When Bucky speaks again he’s surprisingly close, having returned to the shore in masterful silence.

“Eighty years ago, a night like tonight would have—it would have been the best night of my short stupid life,” he says gruffly.

Steve lets that statement rattle through frenetic thoughts, breaking his heart and blossoming hope. But before he can unravel the full implications, Bucky’s climbing up the bank and walking away in the obscuring night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbeta'd. All mistakes are my my own.
> 
> Rating will get a bump when complete.


	2. Chapter 2

One of his boots is lost to the darkness. Steve quickly gives up looking, fearing what else the muddy bank might be hiding. He stumbles barefoot back toward the faint light bleeding through the door of Bucky’s hut.

He doesn’t know if their conversation from the lake is over. The stakes feel too high to let it go, but Steve’s more afraid of scaring Bucky away than never approaching the topic again.

Bucky hardly looks wary, sprawled out to dry on his mattress, reading a paperback. He raises an eyebrow at Steve standing damp and shoeless in the doorway before returning his attention to the book.

“I can’t find my other boot,” Steve announces, “Think it’ll still be out there in the morning?”

“The crocodiles should leave it alone,” Bucky shrugs, not taking his eyes off the page, “Goats might not.”

“Do you have a towel?” tries instead Steve. The cool water dripping from his hair is giving him goosebumps.

Bucky shakes his head, still working hard at looking anywhere but his book. Steve notices he’s used one of his tribal robes to dry off with, but he doesn’t offer one of those to Steve either.

Throttling a reaction out of him would be counterproductive, Steve knows, but damn it, he’ll need more than classic teenage avoidance tactics to get the hint.

“Do you want me to shut up and go to bed now?” he huffs finally.

Bucky’s eyes still on the page, considering, “What are the chances of that actually happening?”

“If you don’t want to talk about this ever again, we won’t. I swear on my Ma,” he pleads with as much earnestness as he can muster, “But I got no idea what you’re thinking right now.”

Bucky does look at him then, with some obvious effort. He folds his book closed slowly, taking several deliberate breaths before speaking. It reminds Steve of the way television doctors deliver bad news.

“I remember being in love with you. It’s one of the first things I remembered.”

Steve has to force air into his own lungs at that, too dazed to breath normally. Not because he doesn’t believe it—he wants to, desperately—he just can’t believe he’s allowed to _know_.

“It was dangerous then. I know it’s all different now, and tonight—tonight was a _good_ night, Steve. I got to dance with my best guy. But for all the changes, there are a million reasons why this is still dangerous for us _now_.”

Bucky’s not wrong. Wakanda makes it easy to pretend otherwise, but the collective bounty on their heads could fuel the economy of entire nations.

“We’re in danger anyway, Buck. All the time.”

“Yeah,” Bucky’s eyes fall to the floor, “A lot of it because of me. I’ve got so much blood on my conscience, Steve. _Your_ blood. I’m no good for you like this.”

Steve doesn’t care. He’d storm a Hydra lab all over again, tumble off a helicarrier tomorrow, walk away from the shield a hundred times over to protect Bucky. Any version of Bucky. He thinks maybe that’s the point.

“Okay,” Steve says gently.

“ _Okay_?” Bucky looks just as hurt as he does surprised. Steve’s never backed down from anything so quick.

“I’m not gonna push, Bucky. Not on this. I don’t have to have all of you to—to love you. It’s never stopped me before. But you should know better than anyone it’s never kept me out of trouble either.” Steve turns away, hopeless at hiding a pout. He won’t let himself be too disappointed over something he hadn’t conceived possible until a few hours ago, not when they’ve at least been allowed to finally speak the truth. Not when their continued existence is miraculous enough.

He can feel Bucky’s eyes on him as he rummages through his go-bag for a toothbrush. He’s got little to work with in the way of a bedtime routine, and Bucky’s still looking at him intently when he turns around a minute later.

“G’night, Buck. Thanks for tonight.”

“You don’t—” blurts Bucky, letting out a frustrated sigh, “You don’t gotta sleep on the floor.”

Steve was planning on using the dirty laundry stuffed in his bag as a pillow. Hardly a downgrade from his usual accommodations these days. As limited as Bucky’s floorspace is, the spare room on his mattress is more so.

“I think maybe I do,” Steve says doubtfully.

“No, c’mere.” Bucky scoots to the wall, leaving a too-small space for Steve squeeze into.

Bucky used to be real clever about coming up with excuses to share a bed, long after they’d outgrown any illusions of its innocence. Back then Steve never mentioned that his back actually hurt less when he was able to stretch out on the floor, or that his Pa’s old army trunk was full of blankets to keep him warm in the winter. And he’s not going to mention the mixed signals or comically tight fit now.

He slides backwards parallel to Bucky until they’re bodies are fixed together, skin to skin down to their waists. Bucky’s warm breath on his neck is enough to break out in goosebumps all over again. Steve can’t hide the way his breathing speeds up, but doesn’t feel like he needs to. Bucky brings his hand to the front of Steve’s chest, rubbing in circles like he’s trying to settle an asthma attack. It’s sweet and confusing as hell.

Then Steve feels something wet and hot close over his vertebrae, every nerve in his body lighting up with the shock of it.

“S’not too dangerous?” slurs Steve, his attempt at sass foiled by the gravel in his throat and the way his abdomen trembles when Bucky’s hand rubs lower.

“Mmm,” Bucky answers vaguely, whatever he’s doing with his mouth moving from Steve’s spine to his trapezius, “Might be.”

The tension sets Steve’s teeth on edge. It’s been so long and Steve doesn’t know the rules, he’s never known the rules. He’s pretty sure at this point there are none.

“Buck—Bucky,” Steve’s trying to turn over, but there’s no room to without falling on his ass. Bucky hand is tracing the line below his belly button now, and biting at the flesh of his neck, gentle then not, “Fuck!”

“You want to?”

Steve can’t help the bark of laughter that escapes, “You remember Lillian Miller?”

“Jesus, Steve,” grunts Bucky, leaving a cool spot where he unlatches from Steve’s neck, “Why you bringing that up?”

“Oh, I was just thinking about that summer you were so sweet on her. Used to steal daisies from that garden off Clinton to leave at her door and you musta written her about fifty notes when she was gone for _one_ weekend at her Aunt’s. Then you spent half those nickels we found under the bleachers at Ebbets buying her chocolates—”

“You got a point?”

“All that wining and dining just to get a hand up her blouse. And here we are not five minutes after you told me to take a hike—”

“I did not—”

“—you got me pinned to a sack of straw asking me if I wanna f—”

“Steve!”

He twists his head far enough to see Bucky with his brow furrowed so deep Steve’s worried it’ll stick. Steve tries to sober his own expression.

“Sorry,” Bucky grumbles, “Guess I’m outta practice.”

Steve still can’t roll over so he gets a leg over Bucky instead, sliding right onto his lap to face him.

“Never needed flowers, Buck,” says Steve, and it’s the easiest thing to press forward a few inches to kiss him. He keeps it chaste and sweet because Steve can’t remember them ever doing something so simple. It’s worth letting the lust simmer for a bit longer while the last bit of uncertainty seeps out the both of them, Bucky’s hand creeping up to rest at the crease of Steve’s hip.

When Steve finally opens his mouth, Bucky’s surprised little moan is worth so much more than a box of 5¢ chocolates. It dissolves quickly from there into the kind of fevered rutting he remembers from their youth, better without so much unspoken between them. Knowing what they are now, what they’ve always been, Steve can’t help the wicked grin when he whispers in Bucky’s ear,

“You still want to?”

“Hm?”

“Fuck me?”

“Goddammit, Steve,” huffs Bucky, but he’s smiling too, glassy eyed and perfect. Steve wants to keep him like this forever.

Bucky reaches into the little crate at his bedside for a bottle of what must be slick, and Steve takes that has his cue to strip off what remain of his clothes. He lets Bucky look his fill. Steve doesn’t think Bucky ever minded him small, but the extra stamina is handy if nothing else.

Bucky’s naked under the robe he kicks to the floor. He’s pushing himself upright to sit when Steve scrambles back onto his lap, managing to wrap a hand around both their lengths, fully hard at the first brush of contact. Bucky makes a mess trying to slick them up, but the glide feels nice and Steve’s able to use the excess to start working himself open with his other hand, an immense effort of coordination the way Bucky’s mouth starts roving distractingly over Steve’s chest.

“M’ready,” Steve sighs to the ceiling.

“You can’t be,” says Bucky, reaching around to fucking _feel_ where Steve’s breached himself, running a finger around his stretched rim, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t. Been waiting decades, Buck. I’m ready.”

Bucky runs his hand up to grasp the back of Steve’s neck, pulling him forward so his cock slides right back to where it needs to be, and with a bruising kiss Bucky’s pushing up, up and in, Steve’s hand guiding the way.

Overwhelmed with sensation and emotion Steve whites out for a moment, his life flashing before his eyes, second guessing every moment that wasn’t spent doing this with this man.

“Steve?”

“I’m good. Please.”

Bucky doesn’t make him beg, fucking up into him at a slow but steady pace, vice grip at the base of Steve’s skull. Steve tries to get it together, clawing at Bucky’s shoulders for purchase, gloriously overwhelmed until he finds Bucky’s mouth again, tongue matching their rhythm. Steve uses that to time the flex of his hips, meeting Bucky halfway, determined to keep up here where he couldn’t on the dance floor.

They’re hurdling towards the finish way too quick, but if Bucky’s serum works anything like Steve’s that won’t mean the night’s over. Nothing can make up for 70 years of torture and ice and never-ending wars, but Steve is desperate to make Bucky feel his love _now_ , in this century, thousands of miles from anywhere they’ve ever called home.

* * *

The heat wakes Steve, sweat pooling unpleasantly at the dip of his shoulders. Steve rarely sleeps so deep or so late, but his body’s in extra need of replenishment this morning, sticky and sore in the telling places. He remembers Bucky whispering something about feeding the goats in the dim light of dawn not long after they’d finally collapsed. Given the shadows, hours have passed.

When Steve stands to dress he knocks something off the mattress. He bends to find several purple daisies folded into a handwritten note asking to meet by the lake for lunch. Signed _Yours, Bucky_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year y'all! If you enjoyed I'd love to hear from you.
> 
> Unbeta'd as always--all mistakes are my own.


End file.
